Oil + Gas
Four big climate items in the reconciliation bill in Congress
The U.S. House Natural Resources Committee late Thursday approved its first piece of Democrats’ sweeping $3.5 trillion spending blueprint on a party-line 24-13 vote. Among the highest priorities for President Joe Biden in the plan was addressing climate change, and the panel included initiatives ranging from oil and gas reform to offshore wind ventures. The […]
Louisiana Shell refinery left spewing chemicals after Hurricane Ida
Behind a playground littered with downed tree branches, Shell’s refinery in Norco, Louisiana spewed black smoke from its stacks. The smell of rotten eggs, the signature scent of sulphur emissions, lingered in the air. In an effort to burn off toxic chemicals before and after Hurricane Ida, many industrial facilities sent the gases through smoke […]
Fuel shortage among priorities in Louisiana’s hurricane recovery
More than two-thirds of Louisiana’s petrochemical refining capacity remained offline Wednesday due to damages from Hurricane Ida , Gov. John Bel Edwards said. The effects were visible across Southeast Louisiana with not only long lines of cars waiting to fill up at gas stations but also with the unusually heavy plumes of black emissions spewing […]
Biden administration to restart oil and gas leasing
The Interior Department will make significant steps toward restarting its leasing programs for onshore and offshore oil and gas development in the coming months, the Biden administration said in a court filing Tuesday. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management anticipates holding a sale for offshore leases in October or November, the administration said. The Bureau […]
Solar power offers $6 billion opportunity for Louisiana, researchers say
Louisiana researchers say the focus on carbon capture technologies by Gov. John Bel Edwards’ Climate Initiatives Task Force could lead to missed opportunities for a faster, cheaper and easier impact on Louisiana’s carbon emissions problem. There are more than $6 billion in investments waiting to come to Louisiana right now that could supply a significant […]
University of Louisiana at Lafayette studies solar farming despite pushback to renewable energy
LAFAYETTE — Just over a mile northwest of the Cajundome is a 5-acre plot of land flanked by neighborhoods of single-family homes and a commercial area to the north — not the type of zone one would normally expect to see a power plant — yet there one is, silently generating enough electricity to run […]
Industry accounts for well over half Louisiana’s carbon emissions, research shows
Louisiana’s greenhouse gas emissions, according to a recent study by the LSU Center for Energy Studies, are “dominated by the industrial sector,” which accounts for 61% of the state’s total carbon dioxide emissions. That’s nearly three times the national average share, according to the study. Emissions from all other sectors of Louisiana’s economy measured well […]
EPA should force Louisiana to curb air pollution, environmentalists say
Environmental groups are calling on the Environmental Protection Agency to reject Louisiana’s draft proposal to meet federally-mandated pollution reductions and instead enforce its own federal plan in place of the state’s, which they say ignores key sources of pollution that burden national parks and majority-Black communities. In a Wednesday news release, the Sierra Club and […]
Grassroot groups give Louisiana lawmakers an ‘F’ on the environment
Louisiana is among the nation’s top energy producing states. It’s also among the states most vulnerable to climate change, which is driving more intense hurricanes and rising seas. That combination of energy production and geographic vulnerability means state lawmakers are in a powerful position to address the environmental impacts of energy production. So how did […]
Science catches up to what residents of Louisiana’s ‘Cancer Alley’ have been saying about pollution | Jarvis DeBerry
If you’re ever inclined to describe how healthy you are, you’d do well to remember that the world is bigger than Louisiana and that you could simultaneously be better off than the average person here and worse than the average person in the U.S. Consider the debate about whether the communities along the Mississippi River […]
Louisiana courts energy startup that converts sugar cane waste to biofuel
A company that turns sugar cane waste into a green biofuel is considering building a $70 million renewable energy facility in Iberia Parish, and the state is offering tax breaks and other perks to seal the deal. Gov. John Bel Edwards on Monday announced that his administration has reached a preliminary agreement with Delta Biofuels, […]
John Bel Edwards signs ‘orphan’ well tax exemption into law
Gov. John Bel Edwards on Monday signed into law a program to help fix “orphan” oil wells by offering a tax exemption on oil produced from abandoned wells that are reworked to produce again. Lawmakers passed the bill in hopes of resolving the ongoing problem of leaky unsealed oil wells across Louisiana, but one critic […]